Resources

Traveling Exhibits: Dale DeArmond

Dale DeArmond: Nondalton Legends

"We got there on Russian Christmas…It was incredibly beautiful. If you see the ice that forms on every bush and tree sometimes – that’s how it was."

This is how artist Dale DeArmond describes arriving in the Athabascan village of Nondalton at the north end of the Alaska Peninsula in the 1970s. Her visit there resulted in a collection of 12 woodcuts based on legends from the Nondalton area. The entire set of woodcuts comprising this exhibition was purchased by Juneau resident Stephen Rausch, who left the collection to the State Museum in a 1986 bequest.

DeArmond has been an artist almost all her life and has frequently used Alaska Native legends as an inspiration for her woodcuts and wood engravings.

She has illustrated and written several books and continues to work on new projects in her Sitka home.

The Nondalton series of woodcuts originated with the desire of Nondalton residents to place artwork illustrating their legends in the new village school. DeArmond and fellow artist Rie Munoz agreed to create the artwork in exchange for expenses. The results were the woodcuts by DeArmond and a series of silkscreen prints by Munoz.

Many of the brilliantly colored woodcuts illustrate stories about hunting – a preoccupation in a culture where good hunting meant the difference between life and death.

Number of works: 18 framed prints

12 with frame size: 23" X 28"

6 framed wookblocks: 21" X 16 "

Audio Video Equipment: 1 Digital Video Player with Screen and Remote Control